Barberry is a plant that has long been known in cultivation. For a long time, the thorny bush was perceived as an ornamental plant. For the first time in Rus’, culture appeared thanks to the lover of curiosities ㅡ Ivan III. During his reign, barberry berries began to be used to make jam, marshmallows, compote, jelly and syrup.
- Description of barbaris
- Reproduction
- Planting and transplanting
- Shrub care
- Feeding
Photo: The shrub got its name from the shape of its petals
Description of barberry and beneficial properties
I.V. Michurin paid a lot of attention to the culture, considering barberry an indispensable raw material for processing into vitamin products. His years of work were not in vain. During this time, Michurin received the first variety that did not have a seed. Unfortunately, this variety has been lost.
Photo: What barberry looks like
The high nutritional properties of barberry fruits have also been established. It has been proven that they contain sugars, organic acids, vitamins, tannins and P-active substances, as well as pectin, alkaloids, fatty oil and very valuable berberine. Moreover, not only fruits contain substances valuable to humans. They are found in shoots and leaves. This is a high content of vitamin C (up to 120 mg%) and vitamin A (up to 140 mg%).
Apparently, in the old days, people understood a lot about medicinal plants, without chemical analysis of their fruits and above-ground organs, which is why barberry was actively used in medicine. With the help of infusions, decoctions, and simply fresh fruits, high blood pressure, liver disease, gall bladder, and colds were treated.
The genus “Barberry” belongs to the Barberry family. This plant is a perennial shrub reaching a height of three meters. In Russia you can find up to a dozen species growing in natural conditions. The most widespread are only four: common barberry, Thunberga, Amur and centipede.
Common barberry
Photo: Common barberry
Common barberry holds the lead, both in natural conditions and in culture. Huge areas of this bush can be seen in the Caucasus and Crimea. Common barberry is a shrub that reaches a height of one and a half meters, has ribbed, brownish-green shoots, completely covered with thorns and small, ovoid leaves, arranged so as not to interfere with the growth and development of first bright yellow flowers, reaching a centimeter in diameter, and then, dark red fruits of oblong shape, weighing up to 0.3 g, with a sour taste.
Fruit harvesting begins in September, but in good soil and warm weather they can ripen earlier. Completely unpretentious to soil and heat. It only does not tolerate excessive moisture; it prefers soils with a minimum amount of moisture, but always open and well-lit.
The plant’s resistance to urban dust and gases allows it to be used in central parks and squares as green hedges or high borders.
Common barberry is perhaps the richest species in cultural forms. Among them there are those that are distinguished by golden-red leaves with a white border and solid or deeply serrated edges. Interesting forms with snow-white, like snowberry, or lemon-yellow fruits. But the most common variety is the common barberry, which has purple foliage. In addition to the foliage, this variety has a dark red coloring of the sepals.
To Barbaris Thunberg
Photo: Barberry Thunberg
The next species ㅡ is Thunberg’s barberry, its homeland ㅡ China and Japan. A distinctive feature of this species is the shoots that change color as they grow older. Juveniles are bright red, while adults are dark brown. The leaves of this species are also interesting: they are arranged in bunches. The flowers are not much different from common barberry. Their location is in drooping inflorescences.
The autumn color of the foliage is impressive: the bushes begin to “light up” with a fiery red color. This beauty lasts for quite a long time: until the first real snowfall and severe frost.
The fruits are coral-red, elongated in shape, ripen in mid-September, they hang on the branches for a long time and do not fall off. Thunberg barberry is also quite often used in landscaping. It is resistant to rust, which harms other types.
Amur barberry
Photo: Amur barberry
An East Asian species is Amur barberry. Under natural conditions, it grows in the Far East, as well as in Siberia, Manchuria, Korea and China. This is a low shrub with erect shoots, as well as large, elliptical leaves and huge spines, which, like guards, reliably protect the peace of pale yellow flowers, and later bright red, up to one and a half centimeters long berries.
Loves open and lit areas. This is a light-loving and winter-hardy plant, resistant to drought and pruning. The species is often used to “construct” impenetrable hedges, as well as as a decorative element in group or single plantings. Its fruits are used for processing.
Barberry
Photo: Barberry centipede
Finally, the least common species of these four is the multilegged barberry. This species belongs to the Central Asian-Kazakhstan species. We are a shrub that, in good soil, reaches a height of 2.5 meters and forms red-brown shoots and very large leaves, which are an excellent background for yellowish-orange flowers reaching a centimeter in diameter, collected in a loose cluster of 18, and sometimes 20 things.
Propagation of barberry by cuttings and layering
Around mid-autumn, the fruits, which have a spherical oval shape and reach a diameter of 1.4 centimeters, also ripen. When fully ripe, the fruits become a bizarre purple hue. The undoubted advantages of barberry include high winter hardiness, drought resistance, high decorative and nutritional properties
All these forms can be easily propagated by cuttings, layering, dividing the bush or grafting.
Photo: Barberry cuttings
To propagate barberry, choose the green cutting method. The technology of this method is no different from the technology of propagation of barberry-like crops.
- The cuttings are cut around mid-June and planted in a greenhouse covered with film. The key to successful formation of the root system on cuttings is constant high humidity of the soil and air in the greenhouse.
- By autumn, they form a full-fledged root system and are ready for planting in nutritious and loose soil for growing, and the next year for planting in a permanent place.
- In a standard greenhouse, up to 85% of cuttings take root, and the yield of seedlings, taking into account another year of growing, is 70-75%.
Few people know, but not only green cuttings, but also lignified ones, take root well in barberry. This method can be used by those who do not have the opportunity to cover the greenhouse or arrange constant watering in it.
Woody annual shoots are usually harvested in the fall, or at the beginning of winter, whichever is more convenient, after which they are cut into cuttings 15-20 cm long and placed vertically in a box with wet river sand. In this form, they can be stored in the cellar, provided that the temperature is maintained around zero until spring.
| Remember: in the case of cutting lignified cuttings in the spring, this will need to be done strictly before the buds open, and to prevent the cuttings from breaking the buds, you need to keep them in a snow pile or in the refrigerator until planting them in the garden. |
Photo: Reproduction by layering
Barberry is often propagated by horizontal layering. This is a simple method.
- All you need is to tilt the annual shoots and secure them in pre-prepared grooves 8-10 cm deep.
- To prevent the branches from straightening, you need to secure them with wire or, which is much better, with wooden corners and cover them with nutritious and moist soil.
| By the way, about planting: proper planting and further care of the plant is the key to a high yield and decorativeness. |
The shrub cannot be called a capricious plant. However, it will do much better in fertile, well-drained and well-lit soil. It doesn’t matter where you place the plants – in front of the house, or against the backdrop of the lawn, the main thing is that no shadow falls on them.
Photo: Barberry on the site
Barberry hedge
Barberry will look good both as a single plant and in group plantings or hedges. Several bushes should be placed at a distance of about one and a half meters from one another, but if you are planning to make a hedge, then the plantings need to be compacted to half a meter. From barberry you can build both a single-row and a two-row hedge. In the latter case, the plants should be placed in a checkerboard pattern and the distance between the rows should be 40 cm.
The height of the hedge can be adjusted not only by cuttings, but also by using different types of barberry. Take, for example, Amur barberry. With its help you can form a hedge up to 2.5 meters high. Ordinary barberry will allow you to form a not very high hedge – up to 1.5 meters. If you want a hedge that can provide protection, use Thunberg barberry. In this case, it will not be higher than half a meter.
Naturally, the shrub is also good in single plantings, both to maintain the beauty of the area and to collect its useful berries.
Planting and replanting barberry in autumn and spring
You can plant and transplant seedlings in spring or autumn. Planting is usually done in holes that are dug in advance. However, when digging them, they proceed from the size of the root system: they should be slightly larger than it.
- Usually 1.5-2 kg of fertile soil is placed at the base of the hole. On dense clay soils, you can also lay a drainage layer, for which you can use ordinary broken bricks.
- On poor soils, half a bucket of humus, 90-100 g of superphosphate and 50-60 g of potassium salt are placed at the base of the planting hole.
- The seedlings are buried to the same depth as in the nursery.
- After planting and compacting the soil layer, watering is carried out, and the top layer of soil is mulched with non-acidic peat or humus, a layer of 2-3 centimeters.
- It will not be worse if, after planting, you shorten the seedlings by 4-5 of the most well-formed buds.
Photo: Planting shrubs
Barberry care
Caring for barberry is easy. All you need to do is periodically loosen the soil, preventing it from compacting, weed it, removing all weeds, water and feed the plants. You can loosen the soil quite calmly, without fear of damaging the root system, because in barberry it lies quite deep.
As soon as the plants have crossed the age mark of seven years, it will be possible to begin pruning, removing all thickening, broken, diseased shoots and those that have fallen to the ground. If you notice that the growths have become very short, the shoots are weak, and the leaves and flowers are small, you need to carry out anti-aging pruning. It usually consists of removing most of the shoots in the spring, leaving in their place only small growths about 10 cm high, on which dormant buds are located – the progenitors of young and strong shoots.
Feeding barberry
There is nothing complicated about feeding barberry. To feed in the spring, apply nitroammophoska in an amount of 15-20 g for each plant in dissolved or dry form. During the flowering period, it is ideal to feed with potassium sulfate and superphosphate, 15 g each, and after harvesting, mulch the bush areas with wood ash and spray the foliage with potassium sulfate – 15 g per bucket of water.
When and how to harvest
But perhaps the most enjoyable thing is harvesting. The first barberry fruits usually ripen in mid-autumn. In the cluster, the fruits ripen gradually, which allows you to extend the season for collecting and consuming fresh berries. You can collect the fruits as they ripen, or you can wait for them all to ripen and collect the entire cluster, because the fruits hang for a long time without falling off.
Fans of natural remedies collect not only fruits, but also leaves, but the period for their harvesting is not autumn, like fruits, but spring – immediately after flowering. The roots of barberry are also harvested, but if you do not want to destroy the plant, this should be done in the fall and only from adult plants.
Photo: Barberry pruning
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Read more:
Trimming trees and shrubs: how to give a decorative shape
How to carry out water-recharging watering of trees and shrubs in the fall
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